I’m a fast reader. That’s not boasting. That’s a fact. I kept stats for 2014 and I average one book or 342 pages every three days. (Yes, stats. Like a sport. Competitive reading.)

But those stats hide a lot of variation. I can read a 350-page book in several hours. It can also take me several weeks. The later has been the case with “Death and the Dervish” by Mesa Selimovic. 453 pages long; three weeks and counting.

I admit the trend was fun — for about a week sometime in 2008 — and it did us all a favour by popularizing the supernatural genre (of which many fine examples that do not include vampires can be found), but I’m over vampires.

The best vampire book I ever read was “Dracula”* by Bram Stoker and sometimes I wish it was the only one I ever read.

Back when voters were considering Ballot Measure 2, one of the biggest arguments against the measure (and the one heard loudest in rural Alaska) was the fact that local communities couldn't opt out of legalization.

That's because of Ravin v. State, the 1975 Alaska Supreme Court decision that said Alaskans have the right to possess (and use) marijuana in the privacy of their own homes. Ballot Measure 2 didn't touch the local option issue because of that decision.

Though Beau Schooler will head to Louisiana as a competitor, promoting Alaska foods with the dish he prepares, the Great American Seafood Cook-Off also serves as an opportunity to meet other chefs to build relationships and potentially learn new things.

Schooler has studied in Italy in the past and most recently was invited to serve as a guest Chef at the Caputo Brothers Creamery in Pennsylvania.

Didn’t get my headline? Well, maybe I’m not as good at this game as the brilliant creative minds who re-wrote David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” using only the thousand most frequently used words in the English language — their music video, called “Space Weird Thing” made it onto David Bowie’s radar.